This study examines and explains the politically, ecclesiastically and socially motivated perceptions of Joan of Arc by the French and the British focusing on late medieval and early Renaissance depictions. Joan was tried by the British in France. Even so, she had a text-book British heresy trial according to the precedent set during John Badby's trial in 1401. Equally importantly, close examination of fifteenth century French texts shows French ambivalence towards, diminution of and, in some cases, complete rejection of Joan and her role in French history. Indeed, the British perceptions about the Maid are the only perspectives on Joan that remained constant through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Our modern perceptions of Joan of Arc seem fairly stable. Yet what became evident during the research for this project is that this stability is a recent development we have simply inherited Napoleon's view of the Maid of Orléans. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the British characterized Joan of Arc as a witch and a great threat to their political well-being. British ideas about Joan of Arc, however negative and contrary they may seem to our modern ideas about her, are the only ideas that remained constant during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boise State University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-77).

Thesis (M.A.)--Boise State University, 2009. / Title from t.p. of PDF file (viewed June 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-77).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Cambridge. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-178) and index.

No description available.

Die Reihe ›Saxofodina‹ wird in lockerer Folge »Fundstücke zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte Sachsens in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit« präsentieren. Die Stücke sollen quellennah präsentiert, die Lektüre durch Übersetzung und Kommentar erleichtert werden. Der Reihentitel lehnt sich an die ›Celifodina‹ oder ›Himmlische Fundgrube‹ an. Ausgangspunkt dieses Traktats war das aufblühende Montanwesen auf dem Schneeberg, das den Augustinerprediger Johann von Paltz 1492 zu einer Reihe von Predigten animierte. Die daraus entwickelte ›Celifodina‹ sollte eines der erfolgreichsten Werke spätmittelalterlicher Frömmigkeitstheologie werden. »Fundstücke« referiert zum einen auf gänzlich Verborgenes, erstmals ans Licht Gefördertes, zum andern aber auch auf seit langer Zeit Verschüttetes, das hier in neuer Form aufs Neue ausgestellt werden soll. Dazu gehören Neufunde aus Archiven und Bibliotheken Sachsens, aber auch Funde, die Sachsen betreffen; weiterhin Editionen und Kommentare, aber auch Hilfs- und Findemittel zur sächsischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der Vormoderne. Wir hoffen, mit dieser Reihe an die vor bald einem Dreivierteljahrhundert weitgehend eingestellten Förderarbeiten im Stollen der sächsischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte der Vormoderne anschließen zu können.

This dissertation concerns the narrative and theological role of divine vengeance and saintly cursing in the saints’ Lives of England and Ireland, c. 1060-1215. The dissertation considers four case studies of primary material: the hagiographical and historical writings of the English Benedictines (Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Eadmer of Canterbury, and William of Malmesbury), the English Cistercians (Aelred and Walter Daniel of Rievaulx, John of Forde), the cross-cultural hagiographer Jocelin of Furness, and the Irish (examining key textual clusters connected with St. Máedóc of Ferns and St. Ruadán of Lorrha, whose authors are anonymous). This material is predominantly in Latin, with the exception of the Irish material, for which some vernacular (Middle Irish) hagiographical and historical/saga material is also considered. The first four chapters (I-IV) focus discretely on these respective source-based case studies. Each is framed by a discussion of those textual clusters in terms of their given authors, provenances, audiences, patrons, agendas and outlooks, to show how the representation of cursing and vengeance operated according to the logic of the texts and their authors. The methods in each case include discerning and explaining the editorial processes at work as a basis for drawing out broader patterns in these clusters with respect to the overall theme. The fifth chapter (V) frames a more thematic and comparative discussion of the foregoing material, dealing with the more general questions of language, sources, and theological convergences compared across the four source bases. This chapter reveals in particular the common influence and creative reuse of key biblical texts, the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, and the Life of Martin of Tours. Similar discussion is made of a range of common ‘paradigms’ according to which hagiographical vengeance episodes were represented. In a normative theology in which punitive miracles, divine vengeance and ritual sanction are chiefly understood as redemptive, episodes in which vengeance episodes are fatal can be considered in terms of specific sociological imperatives placing such theology under pressure. The dissertation additionally considers the question of ‘coercive fasting’ as a subset of cursing which has been hitherto studied chiefly in terms of the Irish material, but which can also be found among the Anglo-Latin writers also. Here it is argued that both bodies of material partake in an essentially shared Christian literary and theological culture, albeit one that comes under pressure from particular local, political and sociological circumstances. Looking at material on both sides of the Irish Sea in an age of reform, the dissertation ultimately considers the commonalities and differences across diverse cultural and regional outlooks with regard to their respective understandings of vengeance and cursing.